Same thing happened to me last week, 10 minutes in the cold basket and it was basically wet cardboard. That 3 minute wait is the whole difference between sad and actually good.

...until you've got a stack of 40 identical drawers and a foreman breathing down your neck, and the finish guy is already waiting. The jig has a learning curve too, but once it's set, it's set. You zero out your error, not your skill. Hand cutting is great for the custom stuff, sure, but you're gambling 20 minutes of muscle memory against a template that never gets tired. When you're billing by the drawer, the router pays for itself in time saved on repeat runs. That's not a knock on the hand method, it's just math.

Wait, is the real goal at a trade show to network, or just to have something to do that doesn't feel like a job interview?

Isn't it funny how we do that in every part of life, not just work? Like I held off asking my landlord to fix my AC for months because I figured he'd say no, then when I finally sent the email he had a guy out there the next day. Same with asking for a table by the window at a restaurant or telling a friend their joke fell flat. We build up this whole scary story in our heads about how people will react, and usually they just say okay or even act like it's no big deal. The hard part is almost never the actual conversation, it's the hours or days of dread before it. Glad you finally made the jump, it sounds like it was way overdue.

And the battery drain on pricey ones just means the cheap caliper is ready when you are.